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SEIDEL ARTISTS
MANAGEMENT
865 New Waterford #203
Naples, FL 34104
phone/fax 239-353-2047
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 Charles
Robert Stephens’s career spans a wide variety of roles and styles in opera
and concert music. His performances show “a committed characterization and
a voice of considerable beauty.” (Opera News) At the New York City Opera he
sang the role of Professor Friedrich Bhaer in the New York premiere of
Adamo’s Little Women, and was hailed by The New York Times as a
“baritone of smooth distinction.” He has been praised by audiences and
critics alike for his “impeccable diction,” communicative abilities and
musical sensitivity.
Mr.
Stephens continues to exhibit a wide ranging repertoire in the 2007-8 season
with new roles in a Baroque Opera with Stephen Stubbs at the helm, Scarpia
in Tosca with Dean Williamson conducting, Belcore in l’elisir
d’amore in his return to the Helena Symphony, Britten’s Cantata
Misericordia in Tacoma and Verdi’s Requiem in Philadelphia.
The 2006-7 season brought several new roles including the
Villains in Tales of Hoffmann, Danilo in The Merry Widow,
Death in The Emperor of Atlantis and a world premiere by Igor
Keller in Seattle’s Meany Hall. Reprised roles include Messiah
with Portland Baroque, The High Priest in Samson and Delilah with the
Alabama Symphony, Capulet with Anchorage Opera, Escamilio with Helena
Symphony, Lord Nelson Mass in Modesto, Beethoven’s 9th
in Portland and Bend Oregon, Carmina Burana in Seattle and chamber
music at the Methow Chamber Music Festival and in Tacoma.
During the 2005-06 season, Mr. Stephens’ engagements included
Messiah with the Santa Fe Symphony, Portland Baroque Orchestra, and the
Helena Symphony, Vaughan Williams Sea Symphony with the Tacoma
Symphony, the title role in Rigoletto with the Spokane Symphony,
Sharpless in Madama Butterfly in Birmingham and the Mozart Requiem
in Walla Walla. Festival appearances include performances at the Lake Placid
Center for the Arts and the Methow Festival. In the spring, he returned to
New York City as a featured artist with “Regina Resnik Presents.”
Some career highlights include the title role in Elijah with
the Portland Chamber Orchestra, an engagement at the Spoletto Festival in
the Brahms Requiem with the Westminster Choir, Beethoven’s
Symphony No. 9 in Seattle, Stephano in Viva La Mamma with Tacoma
Opera, and appearances in New York City and San Francisco with “Regina
Resnik Presents” that featured four world premieres; these performances were
also broadcast on cable television.
Mr. Stephens has sung on numerous occasions at Carnegie Hall in a
variety of roles with the Oratorio Society of New York (St. Matthew
Passion), the Masterworks Chorus (Messiah), and Musica Sacra (Lord
Nelson Mass). Recent Carnegie Hall performances with Opera Orchestra of
New York have included roles in Otello, with Carlo Bergonzi in the
title role, Lucrezia Borgia with Renée Fleming as Lucrezia,
and Adriana Lecouvreur with soprano Aprile Millo. Since his debut as
Marcello in La Bohème, Mr. Stephens’ New York City Opera roles
include Frank in Die Tote Stadt, Sharpless in Madama Butterfly,
and Germont in La Traviata.
Mr. Stephens’ many operatic roles include Rigoletto, Amonasro,
Germont, Rodrigo, Count di Luna, Gianni Schicchi, Tonio, Enrico, Sharpless
and many others, with leading opera companies throughout the U.S. and
abroad. An accomplished recitalist, Mr. Stephens has sung in chamber music
performances and recitals throughout the United States in a variety of
works. Among Mr. Stephens’ featured concert roles are Elijah, the Brahms
Requiem, Messiah, and the Five Mystical Songs of Vaughan Williams
with which he marked his Spoletto debut in 2004.
In addition to taking part in several world premieres at Lincoln
Center and throughout the country, he has also distinguished himself as a
Bach and Handel singer, singing the great cantatas and passions each year
with such ensembles as the New York Collegium, the Maryland Handel Festival,
the Fairfield Orchestra, and New York’s Sacred Music in a Sacred Space. Mr.
Stephens has performed a wide range of works including Bloch’s Sacred
Service, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Verdi’s Requiem, and
Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer with many orchestras including the
Hartford Symphony, Colorado Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, American
Classical Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Montevideo, Uruguay and
Mexico.
Charles Robert Stephens can be heard on the Ventadorn, Nonsuch, and
Harmonia Mundi labels; his most recent recording is of the Vaughan Williams’
Five Mystical Songs on the Avie label, entitled Heaven to Earth.
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